The bodyguard, who deliberately slowed down the closing of the door, successfully heard Yu Yuan say “Mom washes feet for you.” He could barely suppress his laughter as he slammed the door shut, covering his mouth and chuckling.
The other two guards at the door looked at each other in bewilderment:
—Has Liang Ge gone mad? How can he laugh like that in front of Mr. Gu?
—Mr. Gu must have given him a raise, right? →_→ Laughing. I wonder how many times he’s raised it.
The bodyguard captain cleared his throat, smiled and shook his head, suddenly realizing that the master the old man had found for the gentleman might actually have some skill.
After all, he had been by Gu Shaocheng’s side for so long, and he had only ever seen one special person who could make Gu Shaocheng’s cold face freeze in an instant.
In the master bedroom, Yu Yuan finally managed to put the wooden tub down, then plopped down on the floor, panting heavily.
Considering that the temperature was set in advance, and that soaking his feet would really become just washing his feet if it cooled down too long, he took a deep breath, held onto the edge of the bed, and stood up. When he turned around, he saw Gu Shaocheng pouring medicine into his hand.
This was the first time Yu Yuan had seen “taking medicine like eating” so concretely. He was stunned for a moment before reaching out to stop him: “Didn’t you just finish taking it not long ago?”
It hasn’t even been half a day since the nanny brought the water; even if we consider the time difference between three meals a day, it’s not enough.
Gu Shaocheng paused, his dark eyes looking at Yu Yuan with a dazed expression: “…Who am I?”
Gu Shaocheng’s current state was very strange. Yu Yuan felt that he was probably still having an episode, so he dared not let Gu Shaocheng continue to flaunt his medication. He replied in agreement, “You are Gu Shaocheng. My benefactor, my old father!”
As he spoke, his hand was already on the man’s wrist, and taking advantage of Gu Shaocheng’s momentary daze, Yu Yuan poured all the pills from his palm back into his hand.
He hadn’t noticed when Gu Shaocheng poured the medicine in front of him before because he was shaking so badly. This time, he checked again when he twisted the cap. Gu Shaocheng’s big bottle of spare medicine contained pills of all shapes and sizes; it was a bottle of mixed medicine prepared in proportion.
Yu Yuan was shocked. Who was the brilliant person who came up with this method of taking medicine?
Does mixing the ingredients in the correct proportions guarantee that every dose will be poured out in the correct ratio? Given Gu Shaocheng’s method of pouring medicine with his eyes closed, the amount of each medicine consumed depends entirely on chance…
Gu Shaocheng felt extremely dizzy. After listening for a while, he nodded slightly, indicating that he had probably experienced a brief auditory hallucination.
A sharp pain shot through him, and Gu Shaocheng stiffened, his brows furrowing tightly. He pressed his fingertips hard against his temples, and a sudden, intense pain almost made him gasp for breath. It took a long time for the pain to subside.
Gu Shaocheng leaned back as if exhausted, only to find that the backrest behind him had long since disappeared, and his body was now sitting neatly on the edge of the bed, his calves soaking in a large wooden tub up to his knees.
Gu Shaocheng: …?
Yu Yuan wrung out two towels and draped a large bath towel over his arm as he walked back. He never dreamed that Gu Shaocheng would be so obedient when he was having a fit of madness, completely letting him do as he pleased.
Yu Yuan first flattened the bath towel and gently patted Gu Shaocheng’s knee: “Lift your leg.”
After waiting a moment and seeing that Gu Shaocheng did not react, he bent down to reach for it, but Gu Shaocheng pressed his hand down.
Gu Shaocheng looked at Yu Yuan in disbelief: “You…”
Seeing that his eyes were no longer unfocused, Yu Yuan’s body stiffened slightly for a moment: “You… are awake?” He pointed to the wooden tub: “It’s time. Put your legs on the towel, and I’ll wipe off the medicine for you first.”
With his adoptive parents falling ill one after another, Yu Yuan had long since learned how to take care of patients. He was very adept at both basic nursing care and daily meals.
After he finished wiping Gu Shaocheng carefully, he found that the person lying on the bed had already fallen asleep.
Yu Yuan carefully carried the wooden tub to the bathroom, emptied it, rinsed it, and stuffed it under the shelf in the corner. He decided to have the nanny prepare the medicine and bring it up from now on. If he had to carry the tub every day, he might die before Gu Shaocheng.
Gu Shaocheng had a slight fever, so Yu Yuan brought a bean bag from his room and left it there to apply a cold compress to him.
He had to take good care of the person so that he could feel more at ease reducing the number of caregivers in the future. He couldn’t let his benefactor elderly father have to lower his spending because of him when he was on his deathbed.
After applying a cold compress for half an hour, Gu Shaocheng’s body temperature dropped. Yu Yuan thought he would stay for another half hour to observe him, but moving the wooden bucket exhausted him, and he fell asleep in the bean bag.
Yu Yuan woke up in the middle of the night, chilled to the bone, and staggered a couple of steps before regaining his balance.
His hands were numb from being curled up, and his arms were a little cold. Yu Yuan leaned down and touched his forehead to Gu Shaocheng to make sure his temperature was normal. He then tidied up the corner of the blanket for him, stretched, and turned to leave.
After the glass door was closed, Gu Shaocheng slowly opened his eyes.
*
The next day at noon, Yu Yuan finally managed to video chat with his adoptive mother.
Yu’s mother’s cell phone is an old-fashioned phone from many years ago. It can only make and receive calls, send text messages, and search for weather forecasts online. Although it is enough for her daily use, she can only borrow other people’s cell phones if Yu Yuan is far away and wants to video chat.
He sat in the corner of the bathroom, which looked cramped in the camera lens. When the light was dim, it was easy to pass off a pearl as a fish, as it was said to be accommodation provided by the training team.
After catching up on each other’s lives over the past few days, Yu Yuan listened quietly as his mother rambled on about the city’s temperature, which he had casually made up: “It’s freezing over there. Wear your vest and the fleece pants Mom made for you last year. Just do your best in your studies, and whatever you do, don’t get cold…”
Yu’s mother is currently receiving oxygen inhalation and taking Western medicine to maintain her condition. She can take care of herself without any problems. Yu Yuan is worried that his adoptive mother might stop taking the expensive medication without his permission while he is away, so he asked Ye Qiutang to check on her from time to time.
The woman would pause to catch her breath and cough twice after saying a few words, and Yu Yuan obediently responded. She only returned the phone to Ye Qiutang after the mother and son finished their conversation.
Ye Qiutang was stunned when he saw Yu Yuan on the screen. The two had known each other for many years. He didn’t remember much about their childhood, but he could recall that he had never seen Yu Yuan without his glasses since he started wearing them.
Now, his thick bangs have been thinned out, and the black-rimmed glasses that used to cover most of his face are gone, revealing his delicate features to the camera. He looks so good that Ye Qiutang hardly recognizes him.
Ye Qiutang covered his mouth: “Aya, have you been hiding your talents all these years because you don’t want to compete with me for the title of school heartthrob?”
Yu Yuan blinked, confused: “Huh?”
Ye Qiutang showered Yu Yuan with praise on the screen, extolling his beauty to the heavens and earth, describing him as a rare beauty who could rival him.
Yu Yuan was completely confused. Ye Qiutang could tell that Yu Yuan had become stupid from studying since childhood. After taking a screenshot, he dug out the monkey photo from the previous day and photoshopped several comparison pictures from multiple angles, determined to make Yu Yuan face his own appearance.
After Ye Qiutang finished speaking, he showed it to Yu’s mother. It seemed that this was the first time Yu’s mother had realized that her son looked good without his glasses, but she hadn’t felt this way when she video-chatted with Yu Yuan not long ago.
Yu Yuan seemed to have come to his senses as well; he did look better without his glasses. The mother and son stared at each other for a moment.
After praising him, Ye Qiutang couldn’t help but lean closer for a closer look, clicking his tongue in amazement: “I finally believe in the glasses debuff in ‘I Believe in You’! What a pitiful girl who was bullied by the whole school, who accidentally broke her glasses and had her stunning beauty discovered, causing the whole school to explode, with the school bully and heartthrob fighting over her…”
Yu Yuan’s eyelids twitched. Right, aren’t they living in the world? Thinking about it this way, some dramatic settings make sense.
His glasses buff and the vast family fortune accumulated by the Gu family over twenty generations in the original story were easily swallowed up by Gu’s father, the son-in-law who married into the family. At the time, he felt that such an arrangement was too magical, but everything seemed to make sense when placed in the middle.
After hanging up the video call, Yu Yuan fell into deep thought. He suddenly realized that the absurd scenarios he had dreamed about were actually happening in his world.
He didn’t quite understand before. Although the male lead had become a discarded son of a wealthy family, he was doing quite well in his acting career. His mother and his adoptive father both doted on their son. Although they didn’t seem to have any contact with each other on the surface, they must have given him a lot of money in private.
Moreover, setting aside his background, the male protagonist is naturally top-notch in every aspect, so how did he become a spineless coward whom everyone could bully in the eyes of his in-laws? Everyone looked down on him and could step on him, until finally he hit rock bottom and bounced back…
Yu Yuan’s face twitched at the thought of the exaggerated plot points; they were truly inexplicably cringeworthy. Fortunately, as a minor cannon fodder character, the only main plot point he could get involved in was the substitute marriage, and the influence of “change” around him was minimal.
Just as Yu Yuan was thinking this, there was a sudden knock on the door. His heart skipped a beat, and he felt that the knocking sounded even stronger than when the nanny usually knocked.
There are already enough people in the house, and he hasn’t even managed to get rid of the nannies yet, so he really doesn’t want to unlock any new characters…
”Is the young master busy? The master would like to ask you to go to the dressing room on the third floor.” A somewhat familiar, rough male voice rang out. Yu Yuan remembered that the voice belonged to the bodyguard captain who followed Gu Shaocheng every day.
Yu Yuan couldn’t understand. Was Tencent Software[1]chatting site or software jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1304697_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1304697_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], }); unwilling to serve Gu Shaocheng? Why send someone to summon him? He immediately replied, “Okay, I’ll go after I change my clothes.”
In reality, Yu Yuan always wore the same set of clothes, which he would wear during the day, wash at night, and dry every day. He was planning to contact the Wang family to retrieve his belongings.
Yu Yuan listened to the bodyguard’s footsteps gradually fading away, waited at the door for a moment, and then hurried towards the dressing room.
When he arrived at the dressing room, he was met with a huge crowd of people, and Yu Yuan felt a wave of dizziness.
If Gu Shaocheng hadn’t called his name immediately, Yu Yuan would have almost turned around and left.
Gu Shaocheng glanced at Yu Yuan, who was standing against the wall and almost blending into it, and instructed the others in the dressing room, “Get your outfits ready and then go downstairs.”
After everyone had left, Yu Yuan finally regained his ability to breathe independently.
Gu Shaocheng sat down in the sofa chair by the floor-to-ceiling window, his demeanor completely different from the weak and listless state he had been in when he fell ill the day before. His slender fingers swept towards the center of the dressing room.
There were three rows of outfits neatly arranged by a specialist. He said calmly, “Choose one to wear tonight.”
Yu Yuan showed none of the joy Chu Yuxun felt upon entering Metersbonwe[2]The joy that Chu Yuxun felt upon entering the Metersbonwe store stemmed from the fact that it represented a significant change in her circumstances, as she was taken there by Duanmu to get new … Continue reading jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1304697_1_2').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1304697_1_2', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });. Instead, he asked Gu Shaocheng with a panicked expression, “Where are you taking me?”
If there are more than three people involved, can’t we just create a silent group chat so everyone can get to know each other… Please, have mercy on him.
Gu Shaocheng looked up at him, his thin lips curving slightly, softening the sharpness of his cold face: “Grandpa asked us to attend the charity gala on his behalf. If we perform well, the servants can be removed tomorrow.”
Yu Yuan, who was on the verge of withering away just a second ago, straightened his back abruptly upon hearing this, his eyes shining brightly: “What counts as good performance?”
Gu Shaocheng’s dark eyes deepened slightly as he pointed towards the clothes: “Get dressed up and act all cute.”
Since Grandpa was willing to believe in supernatural forces and strange phenomena, he could certainly make use of them.
Upon hearing this, Yu Yuan realized that this was just an upgraded version of the last one.
Although he resisted communicating with the outside world, he had already endured the previous eighteen years. What was one more night of hardship for the sake of a happy widowhood in the future?
Yu Yuan’s almond-shaped eyes instantly lit up like light bulbs as he looked intently at the exquisite and expensive outfits.
Wait a minute, he suddenly remembered that there was also a charity gala in the main storyline where celebrities gathered, which seemed to be shortly after the male lead became the abandoned son of a wealthy family… Yu Yuan’s cheerful steps stopped: “Where is the charity gala held?”
Before he could finish speaking, a line from the original text vaguely appeared in his mind: “[The banquet will be held at the most luxurious Linos Hotel in Yun City.]”
Gu Shaocheng’s thin lips moved slightly: “Linos.”
Yu Yuan: “…”
Yu Yuan took a deep breath: “Do I really have to go?”
Gu Shaocheng nodded slightly.
Yu Yuan looked at the center of the dressing room again and, without hesitation, chose the casual suit that he paired with sneakers.
After changing quickly, he began to try warm-up exercises on the spot.
Because of childhood trauma, he had tried to practice some self-defense techniques, but his small, plastic body was too poorly shaped to achieve anything significant.
Fortunately, he discovered that he had good explosive power in sprinting, and he would take time to practice every day when he was in school, so that one day he could escape at the first moment.
He would run away as soon as he encountered a character related to the main storyline.
Yu Yuan was determined to warm up, so he became even more enthusiastic. However, he couldn’t stop his lunge and twisted his hip with a snap.
Gu Shaocheng was already used to Yu Yuan’s bizarre thought process. Although he didn’t understand, he stood aside and watched for a long time. Seeing this, he smiled slightly and asked, “Do you need help?”
Yu Yuan gasped, “Hiss, help me up, I can’t get up.”
Gu Shaocheng stepped forward, grabbed Yu Yuan’s arm and pulled it slightly, and Yu Yuan immediately cried out, “Don’t move, let me straighten it.”
Gu Shaocheng had no choice but to let go and lean against the French window. Yu Yuan knelt in front of him, groaning and rubbing the muscles on his waist and hip.
The dressing room had no door. The bodyguard, who was about to report the news, knocked on the cabinet by the door and strolled in.
The tall, muscular man walked around the white island cabinet that blocked his view, paused when he saw the scene by the floor-to-ceiling window, and then disappeared with the lightning speed of a special forces soldier.
The two bodyguards who had just reached the door looked at each other in bewilderment when they saw their boss rush out. Their small eyes were filled with great confusion.
The bodyguard captain quickly pulled the men away, one in each arm, his face flushed: “Go and guard the stairwell. Don’t disturb the master for the time being!”
Upon hearing this, the two mouthed in unison: Holy crap! Is it really that wild?!
References[+]